BCE - II

3rd January, 2007 A.D
9.00 A.M, IST

Basic Civil Engineering class…

From what I heard from my friends who were fortunate (I’m being sarcastic) enough to study this subject last semester, Basic Civil Engineering was not much difficult, but was certainly boring sometimes. They turned out to be wrong about the latter...I mean, about basic civil being boring SOMETIMES… It’s only my second class in Basic Civil Engineering and I lost all hope of even trying to pay the least possible attention in class...what BCE1 (Basic Communication Engineering) was to me last semester, maybe its BCE2 (Basic Civil Engineering) this semester.

Let me explain why. Now let us consider a chappie...our everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie, a chappie like me, in fact. Now this everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie is sitting in his lecture hall, awaiting his civil lecturer, it being the first hour that is about to be wasted on the subject. This lecturer bloke comes in, and starts taking class. Civil lecturers ought to be civil, they say. It would be perfectly normal for this everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie to expect this lecturer bloke to be at least civil enough to introduce himself to the class… his name, and a few words about the subject he’s going to teach...and the like, you know. But it is disheartening that this lecturer bloke doesn’t get any such idea and finds it most prudent to start scribbling away on the board as soon as he enters the class. Mind you, it was 3 whole minutes after he entered the class that he chose to show the class his facial features, having been busy showing them to the black board since the time of his entering into class...sigh...so much for civil lecturers being civil. And once he manages the feat described above (the displaying of one’s facial features to a class of 76), our everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie immediately understands why ‘to be careful what you wish for, as it might come true’.

Now let us go into what happens on the second hour of civil class. This everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie can hear “Pokkiri pongal...” playing on the mp3 player of the chappie behind him, the loud snores of the chappie to his right, the nice chat the two chappies to his left are having and a distant, almost inaudible voice rambling on about new son-in-laws (He discovers later that it was the lecturer bloke going on about Newton’s laws). And he gets an occasional whiff of what he initially assumes to be the strongest of those gases that are used by the law enforcement to control crowds due to their unpleasant effect on one’s olfactory nerves. But after careful investigation, our everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie discovers that:

1. Pigeons shit.
2. They keep mistaking (Again, I’m sarcastic...there is no MISTAKING involved) the civil lecture hall for a PUBLIC TOILET FOR FEATHERED SPECIES.
3. And the shit SIMPLY STINKS!!!

Trying his best to overcome the assault on his olfactory nerves, our everyday, normal, next door kind of chappie tries once again to tune his brain to the frequency of his lecturer bloke. Unfortunately he finds that the particular frequency in question is not covered by his bandwidth (I’m being sarcastic again, there is nothing UNFORTUNATE about the above mentioned). He resigns himself to “Pokkiri Pongal...”... er... no, it’s “ Dhoom again and runaway with me...” now... so much for new year resolutions that involve paying attention in class...hopeless indeed, but who’s complaining...?